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Udaipur won't be a cakewalk for Congress this time

Factors that worked in favour of Congress in the last elections in Udaipur Lok Sabha seat seem to go against the party now.

TNN | Mar 20, 2014, 03.35 AM IST

Udaipur/JAIPUR: Factors that worked in favour of Congress in the last elections in Udaipur Lok Sabha seat seem to go against the party now. The party is gasping to even set its foot in the tribal region, which used to be its bastion for decades.

The Congress has declared to repeat its sitting parliamentarian Raghuveer Singh Meena for the elections, while the BJP is still pondering over few names both from among the veteran and the fresher lot for this prestigious Mewar seat.

The Udaipur constituency comprises eight assembly segments-Gogunda, Jhadol, Kherwara, Udaipur rural, Udaipur, Salumbar, Dhariawad and Aspur. The coming election would be a real challenge to candidates from both the principal parties-Congress and BJP. It can no longer be regarded a safe seat for the Congress, which pocketed victory 10 times in the 15 general elections held so far.

Udaipur Lok Sabha seat remained with the Congress from 1952 to 1967. It then went to Lalji Bhai Meena of the Jan Sangh in 1971 and to Bhanu Kumar Shastri of the BJP in 1977. The 1980s, however, saw the rise of Congress once again, as Mohanlal Sukhadia, former chief minister and his wife Indubala Sukhadia reigned over it in 1980 and 1984, respectively. In 1989, BJP's Gulab Chand Kataria was elected from here but he lost it to Congress' Girija Vyas two years later.

Vyas emerged as a prominent leader by winning the seat successively for three terms-1991, 1996 and 1999. In 2004, Kiran Maheshwari from the BJP won. With the last delimitation, however, the constituency became a reserved seat for the scheduled tribes (ST) candidates.

Congress' Meena, who was then the party's legislator from Sarada assembly seat, won this Lok Sabha constituency with a big margin of over 1.64 lakh votes and defeated BJP's Mahaveer Bhagora in 2009. Meena's political background of being a three-time legislator and the son of late Devendra Meena, a four-time legislator, got him majority of the votes then.

The current political scenario, though, does not look in his favour. His wife Basanti Devi got defeated from Sarada with the highest margin of votes in the district during the recent assembly elections in December. Basanti Devi's defeat was being seen as anti-incumbency against the Meena family. Also, BJP won seven of the eight assembly seats in the district just three months ago. All this appears like a trailer of what to expect in the coming elections.

The local Congress is divided into various groups. With warring supporters and the leaders' indifference to this could go against Meena, who is now trying to unite the party's local unit. Meena is also said to have never gelled with the camp of former union minister C P Joshi, Congress' another tall leader from Mewar, or with the supporters of ex-MLA Sajjan Katara. When Meena returned to Udaipur after his nomination was announced, no big leader from the district Congress was present to greet him. Without looking low, Meena told the reporters present that would win again with a thumping majority.

The BJP is considering the name of its former legislator Arjun Lal Meena, who is believed to be in the good books of chief minister Vasundhara Raje. At the same time, veteran leaders like Mahaveer Bhagora and Chunnilal Garasia are also in the fray for the party ticket. It was Arjun Lal Meena who was given the charge of BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's rally at Udaipur during the assembly polls in December 2013. The rally was a big hit and people turned up for it from some of the most remote areas of the region. Even as it could be Modi's popularity that drew the crowds, the former legislator's grasp on locals is duly being considered by the BJP.

The Aam Aadmi Party too has pitched in the elections with its candidate Valji Bhai, a name less known to the mass.

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